Sean C. Morgan
School District officials continued briefing the Sweet Home School Board Monday, Nov. 13, on their findings in the school report cards released by the state last month, particularly noting academic growth in the district.
Recent releases of last year’s test performance show that while the high school performed relatively well in student achievement, the district didn’t do as well in lower grades. The district and school report cards reflected this, but they also showed academic growth.
Supt. Tom Yahraes and Rachel Stucky, director of student learning and achievement, began reporting to the board on test scores and report card results at last month’s board meeting.
The state didn’t fully rate districts this year based on changes that are under way in the reporting system, said Supt. Tom Yahraes. He expects that will happen next year.
Several schools showed strong growth over the past two years, Yahraes said. Foster and the Junior High were ranked at Level 4, and Hawthorne was ranked at the maximum, Level 5, for academic growth. Other elementary schools were ranked at Level 3, while the high school showed low group growth at Level 2 and the same kind of growth seen elsewhere in the district in academic growth, Level 3.
Academic growth considers how far students have come in 2016-17 compared to where they were in 2014 and 2015, Yahraes said.
“That’s the category I really like, academic growth.”
Student group growth considers specific groups of students, such as those with disabilities, the economically disadvantages and racial groups.
Yahraes said the district needs to focus on improving the growth among students with disabilities.
Yahraes and Stucky have described a wide variety of measures the district has undertaken to increase academic achievement.
Among them was expanding the school week from four days to five and then implementing early release days on Wednesdays for professional development. The school day ends an hour early, and teachers must attend professional development sessions.
Stucky outlined the what the district is doing with professional development time.
“We need to be transparent,” she said. The taxpayers should know what teachers are doing when students leave the buildings early. “We have 37 early release Wednesdays. They’re all different.”
The district has four primary types of professional development, Stucky told the board. They are district level professional development, building level professional development, district level professional learning communities and building level learning communities.
District level professional development is scheduled twice per trimester, six times a year, Stucky said. The training is offered by the district’s Academic Leadership Team.
The training is designed to increase understanding of the district-wide focus, Stucky said. For this year, it is about student engagement strategies.
Building level professional development is scheduled twice per trimester, six times for the year, she said. It focuses on specific training and followup based on building or departmental needs and is offered by site councils and building leadership teams.
District level PLC sessions are scheduled four times and focus on needs at specific grade levels across the district. At the secondary level, it is focused on promoting “thriving citizens.”
The majority of early release days are spent in building level PLCs, every two to three weeks, and focused on specific grades and content areas.
They continuously ask four questions:
n What do we want kids to know?
n How will we know when they know it?
n How will we respond when they don’t know it?
n How will we respond when they do know it?
Each trimester, at least one day is set aside to prepare for parent-teacher conferences.
“If you have good professional development,” Stucky said. “You have good student achievement or a successful outcome.”
The professional development is comprehensive and cohesive, she said.
Asked how the district handled professional development before, she said understands that it kind of “build you own topic.”
This is Stucky’s second year in the district.
One of the things that came up regularly is what the district was doing on Fridays during the four-day week, Yahraes said. They often were catch-up prep time.
It wasn’t centralized or organized, Yahraes said. The teachers might talk about one thing this month and not talk about it again until February.
He likes the structure in place this year, he said. It has more continuity, with teachers talking to each other.
Present at the meeting were Jason Van Eck, Chanz Keeney, Jason Redick, Chairman Mike Reynolds, Carol Babcock, Angela Clegg and Ben Emmert. Absent were Jim Gourley and Debra Brown.
In other business, the board:
n Approved a contract with Certified Systems of Junction City for $137,056 to install new fiber optic lines at Sweet Home High School.
The federal E-rate program will reimburse $54,644.66, said Business Manager Kevin Strong. The remainder will come from the district’s technology and curriculum funds.
The new fiber will provide 10 Gb/s (gigabyte per second) performance compared to the current 1 Gb/s, allowing for future growth.
The existing fiber will remain in place and be used for the school’s video surveillance system, Strong said. “By separating the traffic, we will be able to provide increased bandwidth speeds and reliability throughout the high school.”
“It’s 20 years old,” said SHHS Principal Ralph Brown, and the district is trying to do more with technology.
It will help with speed, reliability and capacity, Strong said. Increasingly, the science curriculum is relying on networked technology, for example.
Where movies used to be on reels and then DVDs, today it is streamed from the Internet, he said, placing more demands on the system as more devices are connected.
“The fiber is the backbone that allows all that to take place,” Strong said.
n Approved the use of a construction manager-general contractor method for contracting the upcoming seismic rehabilitation project at Hawthorne Elementary School.
The $1.5 million project will be handled the same way the district handled the high school auditorium seismic upgrade.
It is typical of these projects in Oregon, Strong said. Instead of designing then bidding the project, the district requests proposals from construction managers, who are involved in the design phase of the project as well as construction, reducing the likelihood of design errors.
The project is funded by a state grant.
The district also is planning to more seismic upgrade projects, at Foster and Holley schools.
n Heard that Yahraes will begin a strategic planning process in December.
He said that it was one of the expectations when he was hired.
The existing strategic plan is “very big,” he said. They’re tending to be smaller, just one- or two-page documents, now.
He wants to create a streamlined plan that connects with the performance plans already in place throughout the district, adjust those to meet the needs of the Strategic Plan.
It will kick off on Dec. 11 at the board’s regular meeting when Yahraes will share objectives, the process and timelines.
In January, a community survey will be open for three weeks followed by a community meeting on Jan 23 to gather responses to survey questions.
Not scheduled yet are “staff dialogues” at each school, and Yahraes will collect staff responses to the survey.
Feb. 22, a Strategic Planning Committee will convene to analyze and group data from the meetings and surveys.
March 8, the committee will identify goals for priority areas.
April 12, the committee will finalize strategic plan content.
The board will consider the plan on May 14.
Afterward, district departments will design their performance plans based on the Strategic Plan.
n Approved School Board and superintendent working agreements.
The board voted 6-1 to approve the School Board Working Agreement. Keeney opposed it.
According to the agreement, the purpose is to enhance teamwork among members of the board and between the board and administration.
In summary, the agreement included 15 provisions:
n Don’t spring surprises on other board members or the superintendent.
n Communication between staff and the board is encouraged as long as it follows board policy, recognizing that communication regarding district issues is extremely important.
n Follow the chain of command. The last stop, not the first, is the board, which means complaints and criticisms follow a procedure and chain that leads to the board.
n Own the collective decision-making process, with the senior leadership team supporting decisions made by the board.
n Exemplify the governance role. The leadership team should support the policies the district has in place, annually studying and reviewing policies for effectiveness.
n Conduct a self-assessment and evaluation annually, addressing problems, such as poor meeting attendance or disclosure of confidential information.
n Clearly state goals for the board and superintendent.
n Use CEO input from the superintendent.
n Act only as a body. Individual members do not have authority.
n Follow meeting protocols in order to be a well-functioning, effective board.
n Avoid marathon board meetings; be efficient and effective.
n Practice efficient decision-making without endless discussion and taking action when the discussion becomes repetitive.
n Speak to agenda issues. The board should not converse with the audience and speak to issues on the agenda.
n Hold closed executive sessions only when legally appropriate. The requirements for executive sessions are defined by state law.
n Children’s interests come first. The board will represent the needs and interests of all children in our district.
Keeney said he didn’t feel comfortable with some of the provisions.
“I feel it tries to pigeonhole everybody in the same direction,” Keeney said. “We’re professional .We never had any problems.”
He likes the idea that the board is made of individuals who may choose to be outspoken on different topics.
Reynolds said that board members still can be.
The agreement was an outline of expectations, Redick said. “I don’t think any of this is unreasonable. It’s pretty straight-forward.”
Keeney provided two points he was concerned about.
Under “meeting protocol,” the agreement says, “We agree to avoid words and actions that create a negative impression on an individual.”
“I don’t really like the way that sounds,” Keeney said. “I don’t want to be limited (from) having an actual discussion.
“In past history, I have not been happy with the superintendent.”
Just because he is happy now, “I don’t want anybody to feel like they can’t speak,” Keeney said.
He also is concerned about the first provision, “don’t spring surprises.”
He believes the professional way to handle things is to give the superintendent a heads up and ask for an item to be on the agenda, but if he thinks of something during a meeting, he wants to be able to bring it up anyway.
The provision states that surprises should be the exception, not the rule.
Keeney understands that it is just an agreement and not a policy, but he’s concerned that it might get mixed up and limit discussions.
He had no problem with the Superintendent Working Agreement and voted with the board to approve it.
That agreement includes the board’s expectations of the superintendent to work with the board to establish a clear vision for the district; prepare preliminary goals annually for the board’s consideration; providing data to the board so it can make data-driven decisions; conduct self-assessment prior to the board’s evaluation of the superintendent; and communicate with the board promptly and effectively, providing follow-up information.
The agreement includes expectations of the board by the superintendent to show integrity of the highest order; an effort to foster unity, harmony and open communications within the board; a willingness to acknowledge and follow the chain of command in the district; a willingness, within budget constraints, to provide the superintendent with adequate staff and clerical assistance; and a willingness to study and evaluate educational issues affecting the district.
The agreements were recommended by the Oregon School Boards Association during a board training session in September.
Keeney said the board has always declined to pass these kinds of agreements in the past and wondered why it needed them now.
Reynolds told him that the board had changed since the last time, and an OSBA representative had recommended it.